Accounting issues spur Starbucks restatement

Pacific Northwest

Starbucks

Starbucks restated net income, lowering it by a total of $12.6 million over more than three years, because of accounting issues related to its leases.

Starbucks improperly accounted for rent holidays and leasehold improvements funded by landlord incentives, the Seattle-based coffee-shop chain said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday.

The restatement reduces Starbucks' fiscal 2002 profit by $1.3 million, fiscal 2003 by $1.5 million and fiscal 2004 by $1.2 million, the company said. Starbucks also reduced earnings for the years prior to 2002 by a total of $8.6 million.

Starbucks, along with other retailers, began reviewing its accounting earlier this month after the SEC released a letter on lease-accounting issues.

Safeco

Locke is joining board of directors

Former Gov. Gary Locke is joining Safeco's board of directors, the Seattle insurance company said yesterday.

Locke will join the board, then stand for election at the annual shareholders meeting in May, Safeco said.

Locke, 55, served two terms as Washington state governor. Earlier this week, Locke said he was joining the Seattle law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, where he will specialize in China and governmental relations.

ADIC

Unexpected decline pushes shares down

Shares of Redmond-based Advanced Digital Information Corp. (ADIC), which makes devices and software used by companies to store computer data, fell 14.2 percent yesterday after the company said fiscal first-quarter revenue fell more than analysts expected.

ADIC reported Thursday that sales for its first quarter ended Jan. 31 dropped 6.3 percent to $110.8 million. Analysts expected revenue of $116.2 million.

"It's not that we lost business," said Peter Van Oppen, chairman and chief executive. "We walked away from low-end business and saw other products ended their life cycles. These will be replaced."

Shares of ADIC fell $1.45 to $8.80 yesterday.

Venture Bank

"Relationship" cited in 2 departures

Venture Bank President Jon Jones was fired and Chief Financial Officer Cathy Reines resigned over unspecified "relationship" matters that indicated "poor judgment," the banking group's chief executive said yesterday.

Ken Parsons, chief executive of Lacey-based Venture Financial Group, declined to elaborate, but said the board's loss of confidence in Jones didn't reflect problems with bank operations. "It was all personal relationship-issue related," Parsons said.

Jones became bank president two years ago. Reines was CFO of the parent company for nearly two years. The departures took effect Monday. Parsons will serve as interim president.

Compiled from Bloomberg News, The Associated Press and Seattle Times business staff